First Days and Labor Day

Ah! First day of school fun.  These boys are all growing up so fast. Lately, I have asked Dawson to please stop getting bigger, but he says he can't because I keep feeding him.  Also, he reassures me that it will be okay because he will still love me when he's big.  Now I just need to get the others to promise!

Asher was our first one back to school, an 8th grader this year at Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School.  He likes it and has some great friends.  Sometime during his 6th grade year, a bunch of soccer loving boys found each other and now play every day during lunch.  Who says you can't have recess in middle school?!

Beckett tried out a new adventure this year at Coyote Willow Family School.  His schedule is new and different for us all but wer're giving it a go.  His program is 50%, meaning he will do half of the work at school and half at home. He was excited for something new, although the suggested 'filing box' idea was not his favorite.  He made it his own anyway with some fun stickers (Go Cougars!).  We're excited to see how he grows this year!

Dawson started up preschool this year and was THRILLED to finally have a go at something all his own.  He loved it from the start and we can't wait to hear all the fun facts he'll be bringing home with him.  D is excited for field trips, mom's volunteer days, snack time and new friends.

A couple of weeks later, Labor Day weekend came, and Corey and I had a quick trip up to Taos planned so we could see Sting in concert.  He performed at Kit Carson Park and we went with some great friends, the Sheperds.  We've known Chris and Jess for a long time now and although we don't get to see them often enough, whenever we do it's a fantastic and memorable time.  This night did not disappoint!

In order to make this concert a reality, my mom agreed to come for a little visit and watch the boys while we were gone.  Thanks a million times over to her!  We had a great time visiting and really appreciate her being willing to take on the crazies for a day.  As always, the boys had a great time with her (as did we), but they were wishing it was summer instead of school days so they could play more. We'll just have to get a visit in another time soon!

Corey and I made the best of the drive up to Taos. He'd heard about a great roadside taco place en route called El Parisol.  The tacos did not disappoint and the long line outside proved that the stop was not exactly a secret.  Pretty old churches, tacos, good conversation and a little down time was nice.  Oh, and the concert was great.  A rustic, small-ish venue and world class music made for a charming night in the mountains with old friends.  A fun way to spend Labor Day!

Summer 2019

Busy, amazing, fun, crazy summer!  Shamefully, I didn't blog but we have lots of pictures so I can remember all the good times.  Corey and I went on a cuise to celebrate our 20th anniversary, and we had a few fun days in Utah before leaving the boys with my parents for a few days but I'll save that for another post.

We started things off with baseball.  Beckett had the opportunity to be on the Petroglyph Little League All Stars team, so the first couple of weeks were games, practice, repeat nonstop.  He loved being a part of it though and we are so proud of him for honing some of his skills this past season.  Way to go B!!

Celebrating the 4th of July was so much fun this year.  We started the day at our ward fun run, breakfast and bike parade.  The kids decorated their scooters and Dawson in particular had a great ride racing his little friends. Our friends, the Christisons had a party with great food, fun people, face painting, and fireworks (diy ones too, yikes!).

We had a fun visit from Adam, Kayla and Blakely in July!  Dawson and Blakely were cute little buddies and we had a great time having them here.  We hit the zoo, had some great food, swam lots (Blakely is a fish), played and even went to our local free 7-11 Slurpee day.  Yay!  We wish they lived closer.

Also, swimming.  Swimming, swimming and more swimming. The boys rode their bikes to swim team then we would swim at home most days and lots of nights too (especially when the pool gets to be a giant hot tub mid summer). Beckett tried Water Polo this year and really loved it.  Both boys made it to the District and City Swim meets and swam their hearts out.  Beck ended up taking first for Breaststroke and was also awarded an MVP plaque for water polo.  At summer's end, Dawson finally decided he wanted to swim for real which is both good and bad.  Too much bravery makes for a super nervous momma.

We also had movie nights, lizards and toads, food from the garden, grilling, games, a visit to the new penguin exhibit, lemonade stands, soccer practices for Asher (starting in July!), Isotopes games, lemonade stands, monsooons and more.  I'm always a little sad when school starts up again, about the time when we finally get into our groove.  We did have some good times though!

Twenty Years!

Two whole decades!  That's how long we've been married.  I love us.  I love that we want to keep moving forward, improving ourselves, and our marriage.  I love that we can laugh, and have a great time together.  I love that we're best friends.  I love our talks, our time together, all of it.  We were lucky enough to wrangle my parents into taking the kids for a week while we went on a cruise to celebrate.  We owe them forever I'm sure!  

After spending a day in Utah (roller skating with the kids, visiting with my sisters), we flew out to Fort Lauderdale on the red eye.  I just don't sleep well on flights, and he hadn't had much either, but somehow we rented our car and made the short drive over to Miami.  After a quick 20 minute nap in the car so I could function, we parked, grabbed some breakfast and walked all over balmy South Beach  We stopped in at the Marshall's, soaked in the AC, bought Corey a new swimsuit, took a trolley, boarded our ship the MSC Seaside, an Italian cruise line) and saw a show despite our exhaustion!

We slept late our first day at sea, and enjoyed the amazing view from our deck. Our room was awesome, with a very large deck/patio looking out onto the ocean with a table, chairs and a couple of loungers. Loved it!  We hit the gym, lounged and read books on the deck and enjoyed the food and another show.  The shows on this ship, every one of them, were amazing.  It was like seeing mini cirque-esque shows every night.  Really so much better than expected.  

The day we toured San Juan, we worked out, and had room service come by with the BEST pain au chocolate (this ship also did pastries right, yum).  We hit all the waterslides, swam and then spent the evening in Old San Juan.  Our first stop was the Castle San Cristibal, then a cathedral, El Morro.  We walked through the beautiful quaint streets, saw several historic squares with monument, and walked over a million blue bricks that covered the streets.  We saw a view of the ocean and the sunset at El Morro.  The worst part was when I accidentally deleted ALL the pictures on the camera I brought.  Big oops, and so there are no photos, just memories.  One weird thing...there were cats everywhere!  I loved seeing the iguanas, and one in particular just hangs out at the Fort and didn't mind people at all.  We also tried a coconut milk soda that we liked, but couldn't find anywhere else.  Puerto Rico was charmingly beautiful with it's clorful houses, old fort, beautiful views and the interesting mix of American and Spanish influence.  That night we did get to talk to our boys for a bit, and we've decided they're having way too much fun without us!

The next stop was St. Thomas.  We could see the port from our cabin as we arrived that morning.  It was a beautiful, lush, green hillsede studded with colonial style houses with tile roofs.  We took a taxi out to Magen's Bay and spent a beautiful day lying on the beach and swimming in the crystal clear water there.  The morning was fairly peaceful but it became much busier as the day went on.  We didn't end up snorkling, because there just weren't colorful fish, but there were lots of tiny schools of fish swimming around, and some fun top hat shells on the beach.  The drive back to the city had spectacular views.  We went to a small local grocery store (something we love to do) to buy some fun new snacks or foods to try with the boys when we got home.  The island is beautiful, although still fairly roughed up from Hurrican Irma in 2017.  The beach had stumps of former palm trees still sitting in piles, not yet cleared from the old beack park area and overall things seemed somewhat rough around the edges still.  We had a nice lunch with crab legs on the ship while enjoying the views of the bay.  That night we saw another fantastic show.

At St. Maarten, we scheduled a city tour excursion to see both the Dutch and French sides.  We were excited to see it all.  The first stop was Marigot, a city on the French side.  We grabbed a chocolat eclair and a pain au chocolate from a little French bakery (with my very scary middle school French, haha).  The town itself is on a beautiful stretch of wather but is still so depressed and obviously recovering from the hurricane.  During our tour around the island, we saw bats in the bay still overturned or tossed on their sides.  One was sunken completely, with only it's mast still visible.  Crazy.  There were some beautuful homes in the hills, but the ones in town were very shabby with roofs and walls missin, or sets of stairs that go to nowhere.  We did do a little shopping on both sides of the island, drove thru the fishing village of Cole Bay, and saw the airport.  The highlight of the day was Maho Beach which has a runway that is famously close to the ocean, and the tiny beach that people wait on to feel the rush of having an airplane land right over the top of you.  While we were there, at least 7 planes landed, and it really is crazy!  The planes were big, but not the gigantic commercial planes, and I can only imagine what kind of windblasting you'd get from one of those. It was a unique experience!  The beach at Maho was beautiful too.  We loved our tour and seeing the island.  We worked out, saw another awesome show, had a nice dinner then hit the late night White Party onthe back deck.  That was an afterthought really, but we had a fantastic time dancing on the 
deck and covered pool.  

After a crazy night of dancing we slept in.  Yay for us!  After trying to find a great spot to read on the decks, we remembered we had a  nice quiet deck of our very own and went back there instead. We saw a mini opera show that night and had a dress up dinner afterwards (Corey had prime rib and I tried pheasant, yum...and Baked Alaska for dessert). Overall it was a fun day.

The Bahamas was our next awesome stop.  We had decided to hit a few attractions on our own to get as much in as possible, and we walked ALL over the place.  We brought snorkeling gear, but wouldn't you know it, it was a very rainy day!  We'd also brought our rain jackets along, so the crazy rain was fine.  We headed to Fort Charlotte instead of Junkanoo, and had the place almost to ourselves.  The fort was a great place to tour - built in the late 1700's with amazing views to boot.  After we left, it started absolutely pouring rain, I mean torrential downpour.  We found a beautiful old church called Christ Church Cathedral, which was a nice escape from the rain, and then headed over to Fort Fincastle, and walked up the Queen's Staircase (SO cool).  After seeing so much, we headed down to the Straw Market and bought a few souvenirs for the kids, while fending off some rude sales people.  Sheesh!  We were too tired to wait for our late dinner time, so hit the buffet instead and finished if off with some gelato and chocolates.  

And that was it!  Our trip was relaxing, busy, fun, exciting, tasty, and just lovely.  I loved Corey, the balmy air, the beach, the pain au chocolate, our deck, the evening shows, the ship's chopped fruit mix and found a new favorite...burchermuesli, delish.  So much fun and will love the memories.  And a huge and heartfelt shout out to my parents who took such good care of and entertained my kids so well, that I believe they were a little disappointed when we came back, ha! After a week of Lagoon, parks, milkshakes, burgers, baseball games, cousin time, participating in a triathalon,...did I miss anything, oh and each coming home with a scrapbook full of pics from their time, what did we expect?!

We actually ended up being persuaded to let Asher stay an extra week and he flew home alone.  We had to get home for Beckett's All-Star baseball games, and Asher was able to go to the family reunion and enjoy some fun family time.  

Double Digits for B

Beckett turned 10!  Wowser, these boys just keep on growing.  Beckett's birthday was a great day to celebrate.  He wanted crab for dinner!  That was a fun adventure for the whole family.  I think everyone liked it, but Beckett definitely liked it the most.  Dessert was blueberry cream pie (his choice).  He opened his presents and had a fun night, balloons and all.

This boy has so many talents and is passionate about his hobbies.  Cars have become a big love for him this past couple of years and his knowledge of types, and models blows me away.  He also likes math, Legos, star wars, and playing with his buddy Jake.  He scooters like a pro, and loves to be outside.  He's interesting to talk to and always has great and intuitive questions (that I can't always answer).  We sure do love this kiddo.  Happy birthday Beck!